


Paladin

by TheColorBlue



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Nonsexual Romance, Post-Season/Series 06, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-24 19:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14961059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: Shiro comes to terms with the fact that the previous tenant of the body he's occupying never left, and is in fact still grieving everything that happened.Full disclosure: I have yet to watch a full episode of Voltron. But after seeing clips of the end of the series, I felt so emotionally compelled by them I spoiled myself the main storylines via synopsis and then wrote this.





	1. Chapter 1

Shiro had died, which wasn’t the same thing as becoming a saint or a martyr. To say that he’d had reservations about the clone was an understatement. It had been like prying teeth to allow the clone access to the Black Lion, even with Black’s allowing for it. Death on the astral plane was maybe supposed to be a time for calm or reflection, maybe; to be honest, Shiro didn’t have much of any idea of what he was supposed to be doing; and even less of an idea while tethered to Black; but he’d been so happy to see Keith; and he’d been grinding his teeth over the imposter infiltrating their ranks and undermining them and finally blatantly setting out to kill all of them. 

Intellectually, Shiro understood that the clone hadn’t inherently been responsible for everything that almost culminated in everyone’s deaths. Intellectually wasn’t the same thing as calmly and compassionately accepting, and like a true villain, he’d been kind of sort of relieved to see it when nature seemed to take its own course and the clone appeared to be on its last breaths, dying in Keith’s arms or whatever. It wasn’t like Shiro was getting rattled about that part on top of everything else, and also Allura was walking up to Black and suddenly Shiro wasn’t tethered to Black through the astral plane anymore. He was looking out through her eyes, and then he was looking back through his own eyes, and suddenly feeling awful and exhausted and like he’d been beaten all over with a pile of rocks. 

But Keith was there. It was a struggle for Shiro to keep his body upright, his eyes open. It was a struggle, but Shiro struggled with all he had, because Keith was there, everybody was there! And Keith had found him and brought him home. He was so proud of everyone, but also of Keith, he was so proud of Keith, and he was so proud, so happy, and he was finally back in the body that he belonged in. 

-

Shiro was not back in the body that he belonged in. 

He figured that out right quick, after he’d been healed up on the superficial level and was being put through physical therapy. 

It was a body that fit him, technically; it was the right size; but like a uniform that was stiff all over and hadn’t been through a wash and worn in; the body was the right size, but beyond the obvious like the hair change and the lack of an arm, and a lot of his scars being either unfamiliar or downright wrong—

“This body doesn’t feel right,” Shiro muttered, after he’d been put through a set of coordination exercises. Allura sort of looked at him, head tilted slightly, and like royalty she pronounced, but with a gently teasing air, “Suppose I put you back in Black then, this is the best you’ve got on short notice, I’m sorry it’s not up to the original—”

“Don’t even joke about it,” Lance broke in, from where he’d been watching from the floor. He’d been uncharacteristically cautious and careful around Shiro lately. He kept looking like it was his fault Shiro had ended up this way, even though it had born repeating that it absolutely wasn’t, Lance couldn’t blame himself for not being able to fully figure out the clone situation. But then Lance jumped up and gently bumped Shiro’s shoulder with his fist going, “But hey, our fearless leader is going to be himself again in no time, aren’t you?” He smiled big, trying for the old wise-cracking, and Shiro just said, keeping it light, “Yeah, I suppose I will. Maybe we can get me outfitted with any even better, more dramatic arm huh? Won’t that be something.” 

Lance nodded vigorously, throwing his hand out there and saying, “It’ll be an eye-catcher for all the ladies, won’t it?”

“Ladies? Huh, sure.” 

“Or, you know. Whoever! Could be guys, can’t limit your net.”

Shiro just nodded and nodded and grunted as he reached down to pick up a weight for more physical therapy. 

Everybody stopped by to come chat and be supportive. Everybody, Coran, Pidge, Hunk. Keith. 

Keith sat down by the wall and kept looking at Shiro with this soft look, and Shiro was starting to wish he knew what exactly was it that had happened, in that confrontation with the clone that he and Black had saved Keith from. 

Shiro didn’t know, was the problem. There were a lot of things he didn’t know, but he wished he knew why Keith kept looking at him like that. It seemed important, and it wrung his heart out weirdly to wonder about it. 

After physical therapy, he sat down by the wall next to Keith to ask about it.

“Oh,” said Keith. He shrugged. There was a calmness to him, nowadays. Like he’d finally settled into his own body a little. Spending two years of gentle downtime catching up with your mom probably did that to a person. An unexpected blanket of affection settled on Shiro, while he was looking at Keith. Shiro was caught be surprise even, by the emotions. Still. It made sense didn’t it? To be fond of Keith. 

“I fought your clone,” Keith said, and for some reason that sent a weird zigzag of emotion through Shiro’s throat, through the hollow of his chest. Shiro frowned, but it wasn’t at Keith. Keith went on, smiling a little, “I don’t know what to tell you. You caught up at the important part.” 

No, that’s not true, said a little voice inside Shiro’s mind, and Shiro frowned harder. It was weird of him to be questioning Keith—well, not weird, but questioning him in such a hard way. Keith was probably still processing everything, honestly, it was healthy to give him his space—

“Keith, you said that you loved me,” Shiro watched himself say, and the voice was uncharacteristically small and uncertain. 

He went on, “Even after everything, even after what I said to you,” and Shiro felt the quiet grief spill, welling up like a spring until it was spilling out of his eyes, what the hell, “it was horrible, until you cut off the arm and then I finally woke up, but it was too late—I’m sorry Keith, I’m so sorry—”

Keith jumped to his feet with a yell like someone who’d been shot. His eyes had gone slanted, and perhaps vaguely yellow, and definitely wide with fear, or maybe betrayal. 

Keith shouted down at Shiro, _“Who the hell am I talking to?”_

The funny thing was, Shiro himself probably should have been pissed or scared out of his mind, at his body doing all these things without his say-so, but all he felt then was heartbreak, and somehow he knew it wasn’t his. 

In his lifetime, Shiro had experienced many horrible, godawful days, but this was turning into another one of those days. 

At the shouting, the ‘whoever’ in Shiro’s borrowed body dropped everything like a child, retreating back; though now that Shiro was aware of it, he knew where that feeling of someone else being there was, the lingering sadness and fear; but also now leaving Shiro to awkwardly pick up the pieces. He lifted his hands up in the air and said to Keith, “Keith! Please, calm down. It’s me, Shiro, but I think—I think just now that was the clone.” He said, helplessly, “I guess I’m not alone in here—”

Which should have made Shiro feel maybe any number of things, but mostly what he felt was hollow and hollowed out. He’d had the feeling, this entire time, that he was living in a borrowed body. And now he knew that it was true. He’d always wanted to resent that damn clone but now, with tear tracks still fresh on his face, he didn’t know if he was capable of it anymore, if he even had it in him. 

“This is so fucked up,” Keith said.

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but it was caught in his throat, and then he had walked away before Shiro could say anything else. 

-

Allura came to inspect him though. The whole rest of the team, too. 

She sighed, and then said, “You’re right, Shiro, you’re really in there, but I suppose so must be—are you sure it’s the clone? Maybe it’s just lingering memories.”

“I know the difference between flashbacks and somebody else using the body I’m in, thank you,” Shiro said calmly. 

“Are you—are you feeling okay in there?” Hunk asked tentatively. Actually, everyone had a look on their face like they were on pins and needles around Shiro, now that this uncertain element had been introduced. Shiro didn’t blame them. 

“I’ve had better days,” Shiro admitted. “Guess I’ll be on observation from here on out, to make sure I don’t turn berserk or anything along those lines—” He wiped at his face with his hand, and then said, “Funny. I think the clone’s grieving too.” 

“That doesn’t matter, unfortunately,” Pidge said. “This, all of this, you’re right, it’s too risky.”

“I can’t believe we have to deal with that secret traitor all over again, this is like a bad Hollywood movie—”

“Lance, you’re not helping,” Pidge said. 

Allura offered, “I could, maybe give it a go at trying to heal whatever is lingering? Maybe merge the memories—I don’t know. I’ve never encountered anything like this before. Coran, what do you think?”

“My dear, I don’t know myself what to say—” 

The fear in the back of Shiro’s mind, the fear that he was pretty sure by now wasn’t his, was ramping up now. Trickles of images flickered through Shiro’s mind’s eye: the threat of his life being extinguished. the fear and isolation of being stranded, alone, desperate to find help and finding no one; then suddenly, like a flicker flash of a metal amongst other rubbish, a feeling of sorrow and loss, the thought of never having been a paladin after all, wasn’t that the truth now? This was the real truth now. 

Shiro rubbed at his temples, and then made a tentative decision. “Call me a fool, but I want to give him a chance. I can’t just steal this body wholesale from him and then psychically murder him on top of it. You can monitor me, but the fact is, Allura put me in an occupied body and I know, there was a lot going on at the time and I’m grateful, I am. But I guess I’m living with this now. We all have to figure out a way to live with this.”

Allura looked at Shiro, and said, “Oh, Shiro. I’m so sorry.” 

Shiro tried to joke, “Don’t be. I’ve had practice sharing space with someone else; think of all that time I spent with Black.”

“I suppose,” Allura said, sounding uncertain. 

-

It wasn’t the same thing at all, but Shiro didn’t know what else to tell anyone. 

It wasn’t a good situation, but Shiro was walking around without so much as a prosthetic arm, and now he’d got a tag and couldn’t go anywhere outside his sleeping quarters without supervision, this was the life, wasn’t it? _Maybe they should have let me just stay with Black huh,_ he thought to himself, and to whoever it was who might have been listening. Life on the astral plane had been practically a vacation, and the clone could have kept his body and probably be sent to—well, he’d have been sent to—

Shiro frowned. Come to think of it, it was probable that nothing good would have become of that clone. Shiro was sitting there on the edge of his cot, ruminating, and come to think of it, things really could have taken a dark turn for the clone, what with everything that happened. Would Keith have defended a clone, after he learned the whole story of what had been going on? Back at the time, Shiro would have hazarded yes, but now that was definitely a big question mark.

Shiro sat there, sighing and talking to himself, in his mind, and he knew that there was someone listening. The funny thing was, he had the feeling that this clone, whoever he was, was more scared than he was. He was scared and feeling isolated and confused and grieving, to such an extent that it bled into the edges of Shiro’s thoughts too. 

_I thought you were supposed to be me,_ Shiro tried to joke. Then, at the prick of sad-remorseness that bled out, Shiro said, _Sorry! Sorry. You’re right, too soon, huh?_

That helped to settle the other fellow, maybe marginally. 

Shiro tried to think this through. He was always the one who tried to take care of everyone else. That was who he was. What would he have done if the clone had been one of the other paladins? Probably not called them a clone all the time, for one thing, Shiro found himself thinking guiltily. Shiro would have treated them like their own person, to be respected as a person, and told them that he’d try to help if he could. 

Maybe it was a goofy thing, but Shiro looked down at his hand, at that borrowed body of his, and thought about how with another physical person present there was the body language of showing that you trusted them, or that you wanted to comfort them. 

Shiro looked at that one hand they had left, feeling acutely the absence of the other, and then imagined gently laying one hand on top of the other, the way you might put your hand on someone else’s, to comfort them. He could almost feel the tactile sensation, the ghost of one, and he closed his eyes, thinking at that someone else, _everything’s going to be okay. We’re alive, and so is everyone else, and it’s going to be okay._

He felt it as the grief of that other man washed over him, all that loneliness and guilt and heartbreak, even knowing that those feelings weren’t his, in that body that wasn’t his anymore, but theirs. He promised that person, as far as he could, that everything was going to be okay.


	2. Chapter 2

Shiro was lying down, trying to take the first of many well-deserved naps, when the doors to his quarters slid open and Lance came in bellowing, _”Get up loser, we’re all playing Monsters and Mana.”_ Pidge and Hunk came in after, and Shiro said to Lance, “Your mouth is moving and words are coming out, but I can’t understand any of it.”

Pidge pushed her glasses up and said, “It’s a mandatory team-building exercise. Coran’s already got the holomap and holocards set up, if you don’t show up, he’s going to hunt you down himself, I’m sure.” 

“It’s fun,” Hunk offered. “Also, like Pidge said, you don’t have a choice.”

Shiro put his hands up in the air and said solicitously, “I wasn’t fighting you guys on this. I just have no idea what you all are talking about.” 

“Come on,” Lance said, nudging him off the cot. “It’s a game where we make up characters and go on an adventure and roll a fancy die to make decisions.”

“Oh, you mean Dragons and Dungeons.”

“Well, basically.” 

Shiro followed them out to where the game had been set up. 

Everyone was sitting around the holomap—even Keith, although he wasn’t looking at Shiro. Other Shiro was feeling decidedly depressed still, but there wasn’t much that Shiro could do about that except absently, mentally pat him on the back as he took a seat and looked at the tablet he was given. 

“We already have characters,” Allura said. “I think we all agreed we like ours enough we’re sticking with the same ones, but you don’t have one yet. Oh, Keith was still deciding too.”

Keith said, “I’ll be a ranger,” and then grabbed the 20-sided die to roll for his stats. 

Shiro scrolled through the options on his tablet, and finally said, “I’ll pick a mage, I guess, but I still don’t see how this is supposed to be a team-building exercise.” Then he startled when Pidge nudged to give him another tablet. “Pidge, I already have one—”

“This one’s not for you, it’s for your twin brother Jiro.”

“What?” 

“It’s the name he picked for his last campaign, Jiro has to play too. Captain’s orders, and by captain, I mean it was Keith’s idea, and he wasn’t even here for the last time.”

Hunk said, jokingly, “So what’ll it be, Jiro? Are you going to come up with a new character, or are you going to drive Coran over there crazy again by sticking with paladin?”

“Huh?” Shiro said again, like a broken record. Other Shiro was confused enough that other Shiro finally blurted out, “Am I supposed to do something the way you want it? Is this some kind of test?”

“Hey, buddy, I don’t know if this outfit is smart enough for those kind of mind games,” Lance cracked, waving his hand dismissively, at the same moment that Keith said, cold as ice chips, “Yes.” 

Keith was looking right at Shiro, for the first time all evening, right in the eye and holding it. “Who am I talking to? Shiro or Jiro?”

Shiro was taken aback by Keith’s sharp, unwavering attitude, the way that he'd turned it on them, but other Shiro felt too pinned down in that gaze to even ask if Jiro was the name that they were going to stick to him now. That got Shiro to finally chuckle, inwardly, and murmur in their mind, that he’d probably have to get used to it, this was how nicknames worked, remember, and Shiro wasn’t either of their real names either, don’t you forget it. 

“Jiro,” Keith said, with cool finality, “Are you playing as a paladin or something else?” 

Other Shiro--Jiro, whatever his name was going to be--wavered uncertainly. It wasn’t like Shiro to waver about things like this. He knew what he wanted and then he did it, but other Shiro had been taken apart lately and he didn’t know how it was that he was supposed to be put back together. 

“I want to be a paladin,” other Shiro said at last. Some part of him was thinking that he sounded like a child, in that moment, and in all those other moments when he’d played the game as a paladin, but he didn’t know how else to put it. “I wasn’t lying, the last time we played. I told everybody that I couldn’t think of anything more fulfilling than being a paladin and I wasn’t lying.”

Keith didn’t say anything. He finally shrugged, and then that funny alien wolf of Keith’s had stuck his head up from under the table and was looking at Shiro too. Keith lay a hand on the wolf’s head, gentle-like. It was probably ridiculous of other Shiro to look at that wolf and feel jealous of it, of Keith’s undisguised affection for the animal, but he felt jealousy all the same. 

“Jiro,” Coran said exasperatedly, “I’ll say it now even as I said it then, you’re wasting creative potential being a paladin again, but fine! If everyone’s settled in, we can begin.” 

It wasn’t until later, while the expedition was busily traveling through the mountains, fighting the elements and hunting treasures, that Shiro said out of the blue, “Jiro means ‘second son’ in Japanese, I didn’t get that until just now.” 

“Hey, say what? That’s something,” Lance said, “Maybe we really should call other you ‘Jiro.’”

“If he wants I guess," Shiro said. "I still don’t know how good you’ll be at actually telling who it is when we’re not taking turns at a board game. It’s not like we’re going to be pulling out name tags each and every time one or the other of us has something to say or wants a sandwich.” 

Shiro was kind of side-eyeing Keith while he talked, though, trying to gauge for any kind of response, but Keith was too busy, too focused, on moving his token across the holomap.


End file.
